The temperature warms up, the fossil forest revives

The fossilized forest in the area Island Bylot (Canada) dates back more than 2.5 million years to recover from the warming climate, the researchers said.

Of course, prehistoric forests will not rise in one afternoon, Alexandre Guertin-Pasquier of Montreal University, who will present his research at the Toronto Prehistory Conference this week, said.

Bylot Island in the Arctic region of Canada for a while
each has a well-developed forest. (Source: Livescience)

According to him, climate predictions show that by 2100, the area of ​​Bylot Island (Canada) is not currently inhabited and is also the place where a fossil forest will have the same temperature as those in where other plants grow.

The Island Bylot fossil forest looks like the forests once found in today's southern Alaska, where rows of northern trees grow near the edge of the ice sheets, Guertin-Pasquier said.

'The biodiversity in the two places is similar, with willows, pine trees and spruce,' Guertin-Pasquier said.

Guertin-Pasquier and colleagues analyzed wood samples preserved in peat bogs and permafrost. They tried to find pollen to know which plants thrived at that time.

To determine the time the plants grow, the researchers analyzed sediment samples from the time of the forest. They look for magnets in the soil, especially iron ore.

Over the course of the planet's history, the magnetic field direction of the two poles changed many times. Magnets are arranged in the direction of the earth's magnetic field, so scientists can rely on that to determine the age of the sediments.

As a result, they estimated the time when the forest grew the most powerful, 2.6 to 3 million years ago.

From the pollen samples, scientists know that the trees in the ancient forest grow on a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius. Currently, the temperature in Island Bylot is about -15 degrees Celsius.

Fossil plants of the same age as on the island of Bylot are also found in the Canadian Arctic region, where 'mummy plants' are found during the melting of the ice here. The 'mummified' plants have many signs that they are under a lot of pressure, possibly due to climate change or seasonal lack of light.